Compiling instructions for Chopper Commando

[amylase]

Hi everyone.

I got Chopper Commando 2.56 compiled successfully using Turbo Pascal 7

It's not as straightforward as I originally thought. All sorts of error messages came up: division by zero error, missing TPU file, BGI failed to initialise, overlay errors etc. It's a nightmare.

Now that it finally compiled, on hind sight it was obvious what had to be done.

Just in case anyone wants to compile that game too, I've written a quick tutorial here explaining how I did it. Hope you find it useful.

Have a good day!

PS: If anyone is interested in expanding on this game, I'd be the first one like to know! For example we can expand the ceiling to create a strip of galaxy above. That should be fun.

[leilei]

Well the first thing it could have is a reliable timer to keep the speed consistent for faster machines.

[lemm]

Oh heck yes. This was easily one of my favorite DOS games, despite the primitive graphics. I'm keeping a watch on this thread!

I'd say more missions, terrain, and all that would be cool to see.

Maybe maps with different themes? You could have a desert or arctic theme perhaps.

More foot missions would be cool as well, perhaps where you have to depart from your chopper and enter a cave. You could make a separate underground screen below (similar to your galaxy idea) that is only accessible from certain points on the map.

[deathshadow]

I'm not familiar with this one -- even though Choplifter on every other computer platform (Atari 800, IIe, SMS) was one of my all-time favorites.

Going through the code, it uses the BGI (surprising it's CGA only?!?) which means there's a LOT of room for improvement to it's gameplay and codebase. It also doesn't have the most robust input interface...

Given I just released a NEW Dos game written in TP7 just six months ago, I might dig into the codebase for this to see if I can come up with any... improvements. Being based on the BGI at the very least a 16 color EGA/VGA version should be possible, especially with everything built using line-draw primitives.

... or could keep it CGA and replace the BGI with some optimized blitting routines. Would get rid of all the redraw flicker and probably lower the system requirements.

I'll have to look at it.